Select-Object - what can I select? - powershell

Question

I'm learning PowerShell and I am stuck at an issue where I have to export something and I don't know its object name.
I use this command:
Get-Mailbox -ResultSize Unlimited | Select-Object DisplayName,PrimarySmtpAddress
How do I find out what objects I can select with Select-Object?

Answer 1

Use Get-Member.
Get-Mailbox -ResultSize Unlimited | Get-Member
will show you all of the properties (as well as methods and events).

Answer 2

Get-member will show you all of the properties and methods of an object, but it doesn't show you the values. To see the values, I recommend using Format-List instead.
For example, Get-ChildItem (Dir) shows you a list of files, but also provides a tremendous amount of other properties we might want. To see them all, pipe it into format-list.
PS C:\temp\NewFolder> dir
Directory: C:\temp\NewFolder
Mode LastWriteTime Length Name
---- ------------- ------ ----
-a---- 7/22/2015 11:31 AM 44 Computers.txt
-a---- 7/22/2015 12:37 PM 106 NotepadProfile.ps1
-a---- 7/22/2015 11:07 AM 21 Tester.txt
Not bad, and a pretty useful listing, but to see everything we have to work with, throwing Format-List (FL) is the way to go.
PS C:\temp\NewFolder> dir | format-list *
PSPath : Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\FileSystem::C:\temp\NewFolder\Computers.txt
PSParentPath : Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\FileSystem::C:\temp\NewFolder
PSChildName : Computers.txt
PSDrive : C
PSProvider : Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\FileSystem
PSIsContainer : False
VersionInfo : File: C:\temp\NewFolder\Computers.txt
InternalName:
OriginalFilename:
FileVersion:
FileDescription:
Product:
ProductVersion:
Debug: False
Patched: False
PreRelease: False
PrivateBuild: False
SpecialBuild: False
Language:
BaseName : Computers
Target :
LinkType :
Mode : -a----
Name : Computers.txt
Length : 44
DirectoryName : C:\temp\NewFolder
Directory : C:\temp\NewFolder
IsReadOnly : False
Exists : True
FullName : C:\temp\NewFolder\Computers.txt
Extension : .txt
CreationTime : 7/22/2015 11:13:40 AM
CreationTimeUtc : 7/22/2015 3:13:40 PM
LastAccessTime : 7/22/2015 11:13:40 AM
LastAccessTimeUtc : 7/22/2015 3:13:40 PM
LastWriteTime : 7/22/2015 11:31:33 AM
LastWriteTimeUtc : 7/22/2015 3:31:33 PM
Attributes : Archive